" the panel turned into a mini-intervention with Dr. Octavio Rettig Hinojosa (above center, in white shirt), one of the few bona fide celebrities in the bufo world and a controversial figure. On one hand, he is the renowned author of The Toad at Dawn, an informative and extremely personal account of his journey with sacred medicines. Rettig has traveled the world introducing people to toad medicine. He made a star entrance at the congress, greeted ecstatically by many appreciative acolytes, and he features heavily in Bondani’s film conveying the history and indigenous origins of this and other sacred medicines. On the other hand, he has been widely criticized for questionable practices.
The other panelists gently confronted him about allowing videos taken during ceremony to be posted on the internet and his rough interventions with people incapacitated by the medicine (pouring water into their mouths, conducting ceremony outdoors in unsafe settings, using an electrical device to zap people while they’re journeying, as seen in this disturbing YouTube video). Rettig responded with defensiveness, shouting angrily, charging around the room, and lashing out at those who raised objections to his manner: a deeply unattractive performance. The more he was pressed to listen to criticism, the more he stonewalled, until the tension in the room became so high that the elegant European woman behind me, a Rettig champion, literally screamed at the top of her lungs."
Romancing the Toad - Reality Sandwich
http://realitysandwich.com/323272/romancing-the-toad/